FINCHforum

Okay, I feel like a doofus but I have no idea what I saw. I was at Petsmart which still has their birds under quarantine. They have no signs other than the quarantine ones on the cages but they still have several finches housed there. Among them are stars and societies and a couple of gouldians and zebras. But I saw two types of finch I just couldn't identify!

One looked like a small very dark chocolate self-society but it had dark blue patches on the shoulders of its wings. The other was very tiny, about half the size of a society finch. It was all greyish brown save orange cheek patches (and it most definately wasn't a zebra of any sort).

Any ideas?

I'm not sure about the one with the blue, but the one with the orange cheek patch was probably an orange cheeked waxbill.

the first you describe is almost certianly a bronze winged minnikin, a smal african species best kept to its self, they are highy aggressive and fear nothing!! the second sounds like an orange cheek waxbill

My guess would be what lonchura said.... bronze-wing mannikin and orange-cheek waxbill.

Birds should be for sale next month.

possibly the smaller finch was an orange wax bill? I have two and they are tiny compared to the rest of my finches. There are pics on my sig link of my orange wax bills, take a look, maybe the type of bird you saw.

BTW they are nice singers! either that or I got lucky with my pair! They sing all day long nice tunes for me!!!

rita

Bingo on the waxbills, that's exactly what they are. So bronze-wings on the others? Hmm.

Oh, I wasn't thinking about buying any. My next purchases are going to be another pair of societies and a white-breasted blue-back gouldian, and those are probably going to be in the fall, late summer at earliest.

Just as a note on the bronze wings, I have a pair in with white and black headed nuns, spices, and orange cheeks, and all get along just fine. Of course, they were originally in with my gouldian boys, but sent them into an early molt with their high energy!